I'm trying to get caught up with everything after returning from NAMM on Monday morning. I'll get to describing what I saw and what I ordered in another post. I had 212 emails and a backlog of voicemail when I came in on Monday. I'm working through it all while not feeling my normal (well, as normal as I can) self. We've also been working on the shop while trying to get caught up with all the guitar business stuff. We have the lighting in and all the electrical switches and outlets are ready for the devices to go in as soon as the painting is done. We are going to get the hardwood floors in before we do the final painting as I know we will bash the walls now and again using the big hammer on the floor nailer. I'm going to try and get to figuring out the patterns for the flooring this weekend.

I have about 8 more guitars to photograph tomorrow if there is sun in the morning.

Well, I've been busy. We have been making good progress on the new shop. The interior is primed (some finished paint) and ready for the Slatwall (grooved panels that accept the guitar hangers and allow me to move them around), wood floors, and interior lighting. I'm building a valance around the entire store with indirect lighting. I was thinking of staying home from NAMM and working on the shop, but I need to have face to face with many of the manufacturers. I'll let you know what I'm ordering when I return. I'll be returning calls as I can in the evenings on Thurs, Fri and Sat. I'm not going to attempt to keep up with emails while I'm away, there are just too many. I'll get caught back up next week.

It looks like the shop will be ready in Feb. I'll always be tinkering with something, but all the guitars will be there, and I'll be there, and that will be great.

Back...

ALL THAT'S NEW AT JERRY'S LEFTY GUITARS!

This is a way for me to immediately let you know what has arrived on a weekly basis. I will be posting all new guitars first on this blog with links to Flickr and pricing. They go on my website soon after if I did not sell it directly as a result of someone seeing it on this blog first. It usually takes about a week for a guitar to go from blog to website. Please direct inquiries about buying guitars you see on this blog to my email or phone. I've sold hundreds of guitars from the blog that have never made it to my website or the "sold guitars" pages on the website. If you see something you are interested in, email or call. Whomever asks about a particular guitar gets the first refusal on the guitar. You can subscribe to this blog so every time I post you get an email. That way you know the day anything new arrives. I'll likely be posting weekly, letting you know what's up in the lefty guitar world (or my little corner of it anyway).

There will probably be some growing pains (certainly on my part!) with this blog, but I'll figure it out eventually.

Click on any photo in this blog for a LARGE photo.

I've now subscribed to Flickr to host my photos. They present the photos much better than Photobucket. I currently have over 1400 guitars (over 28,000 photos) on Flickr. Click on "Albums" to see all the guitars on the account. I'll be keeping the Photobucket account as I have over 1000 guitars on there already.

On Photobucket, you can click on the "view all albums" under the 10 albums shown on the right (bottom of Sub-albums list) and access all the manufacturers (about 70 right now) files that I have photos for. Beginning 7/30/11 I have started adding sub-albums to all the albums so you won't have to search all the photos in an album to find the specific one you are seeking. You can find the sub-albums on the left hand side of the album page. For example, if you want to see the Collings MF, you click on the Collings album and then click the MF sub-album. I started doing this when I realized some of the albums were getting so massive. Who knew I would have over 50,000 photos of ONLY lefty guitars!

Jerry Welch

My Guitar Story...

I bought my first guitar (a right handed Martin Vega V845, because I'm right handed) in 1975 just before my 21st birthday. Two weeks later I cut off my left index finger in a construction accident (I was a full time carpenter since age 17). I thought my guitar playing days were done.

A few years later, I decided I really wanted to play and it seemed playing left handed was the answer. Having a full hand to fret with seemed more important than a full hand to strum with. So I became a lefty player. I banged around on that turned around Vega for years before deciding to find a factory lefty. Any lefty knows what happened next, frustration. Not even 1% of guitars built are lefties, even though 8% to 10% of the population are lefties.

I eventually accumulated a large collection of lefties but was unhappy with the limited choices all lefties have. I wanted more choices so I spoke with many manufacturers about making more models available. I was told pretty unanimously that they would be happy to make me lefties if I would order them in quantities that would make production feasible. So I did, and here I am a dealer.

I'm finally getting to play a wider range of instruments. I'm having guitars built lefty that have never before been available. I'm working every day to expand the lefty playing options.